


Kick Me

by annacpeyxo



Category: Pierce the Veil
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annacpeyxo/pseuds/annacpeyxo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A boy threw a girl a pick.<br/>That was the beginning of everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kick Me

Anna's POV

 

You could tell just by looking at me that I was incredibly overexcited about the prospect of seeing two of my favourite bands just by looking at me, which was what my best friend had been doing for the past twenty minutes.

 

"Anna, can you just go to sleep? It's four in the morning, you haven't slept at all, and you're actually going to die if you don't." Keerat groaned at me from behind a rather large Pikachu plushie, trying to send me a death glare but just succeeding in looking exceedingly adorable and hipsterish. I smirked at her, pushing my hair back from my face (which hadn't been brushed for almost three days, and was therefore an exceedingly knotty mess) and scanning Twitter for any indication of my idols noticing me.

 

"Keet, Lainey favorited my tweet again." I grinned, quickly tapping out something that vaguely resembled the fangirling in my head before going back to my notifications. Six more follows, and I had no idea why. Maybe they enjoyed my sometimes depressing, sometimes inspiring and always eloquent thoughts that were painstakingly portrayed in 140 characters. If they did, I would gladly pay for their therapy.

 

"Good for you. Now sleep or I will actually murder you." She rolled her eyes, turning over in her bed and successfully coming face to face with her wall and almost knocking herself out. I couldn't help but laugh, despite the fact that she'd been my best friend for almost five years and her whole family was asleep on the same floor (apart from her father, who'd fallen asleep with a towel on his face downstairs).

 

"You can't murder me if you accidentally kill yourself, Keetie." I looked back down at my phone, quickly switching to Tumblr and trying to get past the varying pictures of cats and Dan and Phil. "Anyway, you know I don't sleep."

 

"You do sleep. You've slept before." Keerat slowly shuffled away from the wall, turning so she was practically smothering herself in her pillow. "And we've already had our philosophical talk. I, for one, am completely and utterly fucking shattered."

 

"I don't sleep anymore, especially not today." I grinned, looking up at her and resting my chin on my knees. "Or should I say yesterday? I don't know, I just can't stop thinking about this amazing thing that's happening tomorrow that you're just hiding your excitement for 'cause you're trying to act cool-"

 

"Okay, okay, shut up." She chuckled, leaning up on her elbows. "I get it, you're excited. And I probably shouldn't have given you that coffee."

 

"It could've been worse. I could've asked for sugar."

 

"No, seriously, shut up now." Shaking her head, she sank back down into her pillow. "And turn your phone off. I can't sleep with light." I did as she said, making sure to slam it down on her bedside table as hard as I could and pulling my legs up to my chest. Since we hadn't planned ahead, I was currently expected to sleep on the floor, which was quite possibly the most uncomfortable arrangement in the whole stratosphere. In that respect, I was quite lucky. I didn't really sleep anyway, and didn't expect to.

 

"Put some music on at least. I need preparation." I tapped out a rhythm on my leg, watching the lump of duvet that half resembled my best friend. She turned back, raised her eyebrow, and then reached back for her phone, putting some Pierce The Veil on. After knowing I was satisfied with the song choice, and getting slightly annoyed with her curtains, she was asleep, and I fell back onto the floor.

 

Even after almost two hundred days of warning, I still hadn't gotten used to the fact that we were, in fact, going to see Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens on their world tour. At seventeen years old, we weren't the most mature of people, and the fact that our parents had agreed to trusting us in another city, let alone on a train at midnight by ourselves, was pretty awesome. The thing that made it even better was that I was going with my best friend, the only one I'd ever truly had for the first twelve years of my life. She was quite honestly the most incredible human being I had ever met and, as I'd said many times to her, the reason she was my best friend is because she was the only one who appreciated how funny I actually was. She agreed, but sarcastically.

 

I wouldn't go as far as to say that these two bands had saved my life. I would probably only go as far as to say that they played a part in it. They were the thing that kept me going through the nights spent crying in my bedroom with a pen, paper and a bottle of pills in my hand. But the thing that kept me alive when I sat in a classroom, not listening to a word the teacher was saying and staring out of the window? That was my best friends.

 

I think you could safely say that I only had three real friends. Other people were acquaintances - people I'd met in classes we shared or seating plans - and the others were all at university, so weren't seen as much anymore. These three people were Keerat (obviously), Annie and Hannah.

 

I first met Keerat when she followed me down the hallway in our first year, talking about a website called Wattpad, practically begging me to join, fangirling over George Weasley and continually telling me to listen to Pierce The Veil. I eventually obliged, and a whole new world of music was introduced to me. Sleeping With Sirens, My Chemical Romance, Bring Me The Horizon: all of those things were brought to me by her. We got through a lot of rough patches together, and most of my precious memories were with her, from Harry Potter Studios, our first concert and even just sitting in my bedroom playing video games.

 

Annie and Hannah came around a couple of months later. It was October in our second year, and we were all piled onto a bus to go and play hockey at a nearby field I'd nicknamed Hell. After all of the bustle, me and Keerat found ourselves across from two girls: one holding a tissue and wearing the craziest grin I'd ever seen on anything apart from the Cheshire Cat, and another small, blonde girl who looked reasonably normal. We got talking, and this is where the invention of the drug tissue came from. We'd been an amazing group of friends ever since, and I could safely say that I didn't know of anyone with as strong a friendship as ours.

 

As I lay there, I thought. I thought about all of those things, and everything I could just say right now and no one would hear me, and the music that was slowly filling the room, and I was the happiest I'd ever been. And I guess that was what tricked me into sleep.

 

\--- --- --- ---

 

I'd never had good dreams, but this one was by far one of the worst.

 

I was stood there, a knife tucked into my inside pocket, and a person I never thought I'd see again in front of me. They stood there, saying something, speaking in a tone of utter desperation.

 

"Anna." I stepped forward, trying to blink away the bright light surrounding us and focusing on him. His hair was all messed up, his eyes were jet black and his clothes hung off him in tatters. "Anna."

 

I put my hand up, pushing the layers of what used to be t-shirts away to feel skin. Stone cold. My stomach lurched, and I looked up into those black, black, black eyes and felt myself quail. The knife was warmer against my palm and, without realising that I'd even moved my hand, I took it and plunged it into his side.

 

He looked at me, opened his mouth and let out a gasp of air that was warmer than his soul. He crumpled on the floor, and I was left alone.

 

\--- --- --- ---

 

I woke up as normal - I was practised to hiding whatever terrible things had happened in my mind - and looked over at my best friend to find her still completely comatose. The music had stopped in the ten minutes that I'd been asleep, which was hugely disappointing, and her dog was scratching at the door. I thought about letting him in, but decided against it, considering he had a habit of giving me a bear hug and leaving me with no skin on my chest for a week.

 

As much as I loved Keerat, she talked in her sleep, which was kind of annoying, so I ended up putting my headphones on and lying back. 9GAG sounded good round about now, so I got lost in cat memes and feminazis for about two hours, trying to hide my obnoxious laughter so I wouldn't get a pillow in the face.

 

At around ten to seven, I decided she'd had enough sleep by now, so grabbed the remnants of some Maltesers we'd eaten when we were watching zombie movies (chosen by me, considering that Keerat was almost constantly petrified of anything supernatural) and pelted them at her face. She woke up, looked at me, and then promptly fell asleep again, only to be woken by a particularly well thrown one to the forehead.

 

"Flipping hell, Anna." She murmured, glaring at me and sitting up slightly. "Do you have to? I was having a good dream."

 

"Well, your good dreams creep me out." I rolled my eyes, putting my phone on the nearest flat surface and adjusting my glasses. "Anyway, come on, we need to be ready!" I stood, kicking a blanket away from my feet.

 

"It doesn't start for another twelve hours. Let me sleep." She turned over again, groaning.

 

"It was your friend who told us to get there early, Keet, so I suggest you get your butt off that bed and get dressed." I grabbed my things, eventually getting frustrated with the dragging cables on the floor and kicking them under the bed. Keerat looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. "Shut up."

 

"I didn't say anything." She chuckled, rubbing her eyes. "If you're so eager, go get changed in the bathroom. I'm not moving."

 

"Fine. I'll go to the concert by myself. You can stay here and be a butt." I stuck my tongue out, leaving before she had a chance to answer and locking myself in the bathroom.

 

As soon as I'd dropped the bag on the floor, I shuffled over to the mirror. I looked like the complete and utter personification of shit. Grumbling, I pulled off my top, flinging it at the nearest wall and putting on my t-shirt. My jeans were as black as usual, and they slipped on easily, making me happier than I usually was in the morning. I debated putting make-up on, but decided to wait until her parents had left. That way I could walk around with messed up eyeliner without them judging me.

 

When I re-entered the bedroom, I was greeted by a rather large poster of Pierce The Veil and a rather excited squealing of the set-list. For some reason, I got caught in an intense staring match with Jaime, which was slightly worrying. I managed to get past it, looking over at my best friend.

 

"What?"

 

"They're playing your favourite song! You know, Kick Me?" It took me a second to realise she was talking about Sleeping With Sirens, and I grinned.

 

"Awesome! How do the rest of the songs look?" I sat down on my area of floor, looking up at her while trying to tame my hair.

 

"Well, SWS look absolutely awesome, but PTV don't have a brilliant line-up." She frowned slightly, glaring down at her phone. "Which is exactly the opposite of what I expected, to be honest, but I guess it'll be good if we can get close enough. Oh, and you were right: Issues are the opening act."

 

"Fabulous." I smiled, leaning back. "Go get changed. I promise not to disappear." She huffed, putting her phone down and her hands up as she shuffled out of the room. I flipped her off, as all best friends do, and grabbed my own phone, putting some My Chemical Romance on. Being the idiot that I am, I decided to sing along, doing some weird little jig as I did my hair. It was only when, around ten minutes later, I heard giggling and looked up to find the embodiment of Satan himself.

 

"Great singing." She smirked. "Want coffee?"

 

\--- --- --- ---

 

After a whole lot of mindlessly staring out of the car window, standing on gum and quietly calling a security guard racist, we found ourselves at the end of an incredibly long queue behind what could only be described as the strangest group of girls I had ever set eyes on. Once I'd gotten the gist of what they were talking about (something about Gerard Way and lemons), I decided that instead of starting a conversation I should stare through a fence at the rest of the line, who seemed to be having much more fun than us.

 

"Come on, Anna, cheer up." Keerat tapped me in between the shoulder blades, forcing me to straighten my back, spin around and glare at her. She'd gotten to know all of my pressure points by now, and that was one of them. "Seriously, it won't take that long."

 

"You're the one who was sulking when we didn't leave any earlier." I leant against the wall, folding my arms and sending her the mightiest glare I could muster (which wasn't very mighty at all).

 

"At least I'm not moping." She kicked my foot lightly, grabbing my arm when the queue started to move and narrowly dodging one of the crazy girls in front as she dived towards the floor to catch her phone.

 

"I do not mope." I followed her, batting her hand away.

 

"Yeah, you do. Trust me." She rolled her eyes, getting her phone out and snapping a picture of the queue. "We'll probably only be here for another half an hour, at the longest."

 

"And then we'll be stuck at the doors because miraculously someone found a knife in my shoe." Keerat looked at me, eyes widened. "I don't actually have an knife, Keet. It was a joke."

 

"You make shitty jokes."

 

"Piss off."

 

\--- --- --- ---

 

As soon as we gave in our tickets and entered the room, my ribs were shaking.

 

"Holy smokes." I murmured, shuffling over to the back of the crowd and looking over at the stage. The lights were already almost blinding me (not a good start) and Issues were screaming few one of the few songs I didn't know. A girl was on someone else's shoulders, singing along before she got kicked out by one of the bouncers. That brightened my day.

 

Keerat grabbed onto my bag strap, tugging me towards one side of the room that was a bit less populated than the other. The band finished up their set, and Tyler Carter came to the front of the stage, bright red in the face and panting.

 

"Who wants to see Kellin Quinn sweat?" He was met with quite a lot of twelve year old girls from the balcony, and looked quite annoyed with that answer. "He's wearing a see-through shirt today, too." He put his microphone back on the stand, coughing quietly. Waving at the audience, him and the rest of his band left the stage, leaving the techs to come on and craftily remove everything they'd left.

 

"There's a child up there wearing a t-shirt saying 'Kellin's wife'. Can I tell her to fuck off?" I mumbled, earning a slap on the arm and a stern but laughing look. I decided to listen in on other people's conversations as we waited, already feeling my legs start to lock.

 

"Can I just say, Tony Perry is fucking adorable."

 

"Get off my fucking butt, you perv!"

 

"I'm beginning to really hate the idea of existence."

 

"Ooh, that tech guy's hot!"

 

"Shit! My bag!"

 

Suddenly, everyone went (almost) silent as the object of many of the girls fantasies came on the stage, followed by the rest of his band. He looked pretty fed up already, keeping his head down. I felt kind of bad for him, and mentally sent him hugs as all of them set up. The crowd didn't stop screaming as he went into the first song (Kick Me), and it was amazing.

 

Regardless to say, it would get even more so.

 

\--- --- --- ---

 

After jumping, shouting and singing along to Sleeping With Sirens, and enduring a twenty minute interval where the pact I'd made with the guy behind me (leaning on him to ease the pain) came in useful, Pierce The Veil came on. The first few songs were a blur, and they were all amazing, despite a few people passing out during them. Then my favourite song, Hold On Til May, began, and I was completely locked.

 

The first time I made eye contact with Jaime Preciado was during that song. As he was jumping, cartwheeling and falling over, he found the time to wink, smile and salute at me, which was pretty awesome, to be honest. I felt my stomach practically melt, and did my best to smile back, which wasn't too hard.

 

It was when he threw me a pick that things started happen.

 

He sent it towards me, nodding, and just as I was about to catch it, the asshole behind me - one of two people I trusted at this whole gig - got it. I expected nothing to happen, not willing to fight and silently resigning myself to the fact that I had a chance and I just wasn't tall enough, ie damning my genes. Then the craziest thing happened.

 

Jaime dropped his bass, climbed down off the stage and pushed through the rest of the people to get to me. Taking the pick out of the guy's hand, he sent a glare his way.

 

"That was for her." He spat, handing it to me and smiling. "Stay beautiful, darling." He grinned, kissing me on the cheek before finally giving in to the increasingly angry shouts of both the security guards and Vic, climbing back on the stage.

 

It took a few moments for it to sink in, and then I was practically beaming up at him, making a mental note to tweet him to say thank you. It came to the end of the show, and Keerat, after glaring and making it perfectly clear that I'd just been flirted with by the guy she'd been crushing on for years, dragged me over to the merch store. We waited in the queue, humming along to Disasterology until the woman at the front completely blanked my best friend and decided to serve me instead.

 

"Jaime seems to have taken a liking to you, honey." She grinned, laughing at me when I blushed and pushing her hair back from her face. "I would ask you what you wanted, but he seems to have already decided that for you." She reached back, pulling out a PTV jumper. "He said you looked cold. And don't pay, he did it for you."

 

I blushed even redder then, taking it and thanking her before walking away and muttering something to Keerat about seeing her outside. I received a paramount number of glares (mostly from girls), and got past the street sellers, leaning against the side of the building and waiting for her to come out. Eventually she joined me and, while walking to the station, filled me in on exactly what everyone had been saying about me, which was a mix of good things and bad things.

 

"Brilliant." I murmured, fiddling with the ticket machine. "Well, I can never go to another concert again."

 

"Don't worry. I'll film the next one for you." She laughed, grabbing her ticket and my hand and dragging me to the tracks. The train pulled up around twenty minutes later, which was a new low, and as soon as we'd sat down, Keerat promptly fell asleep. Fantastic.

 

I fiddled with my new jumper, taking a look at the design and laying it out on my lap. It was quite honestly perfect, and I would've picked it anyway, which was a bonus. I didn't get to look at the price, so checked the tag, but was slightly surprised.

 

Instead of a brand name or anything, there was a number, scrawled in hardly legible writing in a black marker. I squinted, trying to make out what it said.

 

'Call me, pick girl. You seem pretty awesome.'

 

It seemed like I wouldn't have to tweet him after all.


End file.
